Omnibus vote bill sparks backlash
A new wide-ranging measure from Republican state lawmakers with changes to Georgia’s election system abruptly appeared Wednesday just before a scheduled committee hearing, sparking backlash from Democrats and voting-rights advocates about transparency.
The measure, sponsored by state Sen. Max Burns, Rsylvania, passed out of the Senate last week as a twopage bill focused on restricting how many applications for mail-in ballots outside groups could send to Georgia voters ahead of elections.
But it arrived in the House Special Committee on Election Integrity Wednesday as a sweeping 93-page amended bill encompassing dozens of proposals contained in several other Republicanbacked bills.
Democrats on the committee cried foul over the speed and sparse advance notice of the bill, as did some votingrights advocates who spoke up to denounce what they view as closed-door crafting of legislation that would bring major changes to how, when and where Georgians can vote.
“I’m just trying to understand the process here of how we’re doing things,” said Rep. Rhonda Burnough, Driverdale. “Are we just taking bills piece-by-piece and just putting them in when we want to? … Something’s not right.”
Burns’ newly transformed bill contains proposals from several other omnibus measures in the current legislative session, including proposals allowing state elections officials to take control of poorperforming county election boards, requiring absenteeballot drop boxes to be located inside early-voting polling places and blocking mail-in ballot applications from being processed within 11 days of an election.
The bill also contains a contentious proposal allowing an unlimited number of challenges to voter qualifications ahead of elections, potentially freeing up the sort of large-scale moves to formally dispute voter registrations seen before Georgia’s U.S. Senate runoffs in January.
“Right now, in this piece of legislation, we’re legitimizing falsehoods that continue to disenfranchise African Americans and people of color across this state,” said James Woodall, president of the NAACP’S Georgia chapter.
“This process has not been efficient. It does not improve voter confidence and, in fact, will lead to greater consequences for (Georgia voters).”
One of the other omnibus election measures absorbed by Burns’ bill comes from Rep. Barry Fleming, R-harlem, who chairs the House committee that held Wednesday’s hearing. His 66-page measure has faced two days of hearings in the Senate Ethics Committee this week and is expected to undergo more changes to be reviewed publicly on Thursday.
Speaking at Wednesday’s hearing, Fleming stressed no votes would be taken on Burns’ bill and that more testimony would be taken on Thursday.
Rep. Chuck Martin, Ralpharetta, who chairs the House Higher Education Committee, argued in favor of the short notice for the bill, saying it aimed to serve as an introductory hearing to the proposals without any official action being taken.
“At some point, one has to put a bill out and have hearings,” Martin said.
Also included in Burns’ bill are proposals from another omnibus election measure from Senate Majority Leader Mike Dugan, R-carrollton, that is expected to scrap a controversial repeal of no-excuse absentee voting in Georgia but may soon incorporate proposals from other bills as it continues moving through the legislature.
Both Dugan’s and Fleming’s omnibus measures also propose requiring Georgians to provide a driver’s license or state ID card number in order to request an absentee ballot, a change supporters say would eliminate Georgia’s process for verifying voter signatures on mail-in ballot envelopes that former President Donald Trump and his allies bashed in the Nov. 3 general election.
That proposed change and many others still alive in the session have drawn a sharp outcry from opponents who argue they aim to hinder access to Georgia voters of color and to halt Democratic momentum following wins in the 2020 presidential election
Before the pandemic struck, Himali Patel and her brother owned five small retail businesses.
Now they’re down to one — a dry cleaning establishment. They have seen a disheartening drop in their income as COVID-19 ravaged the economy.
Patel, an Atlantan who has multiple medical conditions, has been getting her health insurance through the Georgia exchange. The federal Affordable Care Act created these exchanges in the various states, so people who don’t have coverage through an employer or government agency can buy health insurance at a reasonable price.
She had been paying $400 a month. With her drop in income, that’s now at $60.
But with the COVID relief bill, just signed into law by President Biden, her premium should drop to zero.
“That will be nice,’’ says Patel, 31. “Nearly all of my savings have been depleted so it’ll be nice to be able to save some money right now.’’
The American Rescue Plan has injected the first major financial boost into the ACA in the 11 years since the health law was passed.
Many people already get subsidies or discounts — based on their income — so they can afford the coverage they get on their state’s exchange.
The newly enacted relief legislation provides, for the first time, subsidy help to those earning more than the current cap of 400% of the federal poverty level – about $51,000 for an individual and $104,800 for a family of four in 2021. Currently, they get no such discounts, and pay the full premium for coverage.
The new law also guarantees that people with incomes up to 150% of poverty won’t have to pay any premium for a benchmark exchange plan. And others currently getting subsidies will see them increase, lowering their monthly costs.
These price breaks will be retroactive to Jan. 1, so people who already have
insurance exchange plans will get money back.
The relief bill also helps the unemployed. If someone receives unemployment benefits during 2021, that person’s income will be treated as no higher than 133 percent of the poverty level for exchange coverage. This means they can receive maximum subsidies, including no-premium coverage.
With these changes in federal law, enrollment in health exchanges will undoubtedly swell. “It will have an important effect on expanding coverage,’’ said Bill Custer, a health insurance expert at Georgia State University.
Insurance agents say they’re trying to figure out the effect of the provisions.
The subsidy boost could be especially helpful for people in southwest Georgia, an area that has some of the highest premiums in the nation, said Laura Colbert of the consumer advocacy group Georgians for a Healthy Future.
“Every consumer who shops for coverage will get a better deal than they were able to get even a few weeks ago,’’ she said. “Consumers with higher incomes who previously received no financial help will see their premiums drop so that they are no longer paying more than 8.5% of their income.”
Enrollment window is
open
Ordinarily, the large share of sign-ups in the exchanges occurs late in the year during
the standard open enrollment, in which people buy their coverage for the subsequent year. But these are not ordinary times.
Biden has ordered a special, temporary sign-up period for the exchanges, and it’s going on now through May 15.
This special enrollment window was created to help people dealing with the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. But many potential customers may be unaware of it.
Custer said that if the feds want to get the word out about the enhanced subsidies and enrollment opening, there needs to be a marketing push before the May 15 deadline.
Already, more than 16,000 Georgians have taken advantage of the extended sign-up window. That’s the thirdhighest total of any state — behind heavily populated Florida and Texas — among the 36 states that let the federal government run their exchanges. (The other states run their own exchanges.)
More than 500,000 Georgians signed up last fall during the regular enrollment period.
Weighing price and
benefits
The lower premiums may not entice everyone who has an individual insurance policy.
Christopher Halstead of
Plains buys a short-term policy for himself and his son. Such insurance plans have far fewer benefits than exchange policies but attract buyers because of the low cost.
A contract security worker, Halstead, 35, said last week that he doesn’t believe the recalculated premiums from the exchange will be less than the $250 a month he’s paying now for the shortterm plan.
Halstead used to have an exchange policy, so he’s well aware they offer more benefits.
Of the improved premium situation in the exchange, he said, “I would check to see if it was a better deal.’’
The improved premium subsidies will last just two years.
They could be extended beyond that period, and if they are, “insurers will increase participation in marketplace (exchange) plans,’’ Custer said.
As exchange coverage becomes affordable for more people, he said, some smaller employers eventually could stop providing health insurance to their workers, instead giving them financial help to buy it on the exchanges.
Among other health care features, the American Rescue Plan will also make COBRA coverage much less expensive.
The law will subsidize 100% of the cost of premiums for COBRA coverage for up to 6 months for workers who are laid off or see their hours reduced. The COBRA subsidy is available only to individuals whose termination or loss of work hours was involuntary.
Those who qualify for the COBRA subsidy could pay less than current employees do, Custer said. “They may prefer that plan to an exchange plan.’’
Sen. Raphael Warnock, whose election as Georgia’s first Black senator gave control of the chamber to Democrats, used his first floor speech on Capitol Hill to blast a wave of Republicanbacked measures that would make it harder to cast ballots in states around the country.
Warnock noted Georgia’s and the country’s history of allowing voter suppression against minorities and the poor, and he warned that some Republican lawmakers are trying to reopen those chapters with “draconian” restrictions he cast as a reaction against Democratic victories like his.
“We are witnessing right now a massive and unabashed assault on voting rights and voter access unlike anything we have seen since the Jim Crow era,” Warnock said Wednesday. “One person, one vote is being threatened right now. Politicians in my home state and all across America, in their craven lust for power, have launched a full-fledged assault on voting rights” and on “democracy itself.”
The first-term senator’s speech followed Senate Democrats’ introduction of a sweeping election law overhaul, called the “For the People Act,” that could override many of the restrictive measures that Republicans are pushing at the state level. Warnock is the Senate bill’s lead sponsor. The House passed its version in the previous Congress and again last month on a 220-210 vote that fell along party lines.